On Sunday morning in Henrico County, Virginia, dozens of residents woke to find old TV sets dumped on their lawns. One person reviewed their home security footage and reported the following:"It was a guy dressed in a jumpsuit with a TV for a head," said Adrian Garner. "It’s the weirdest thing. He squats down, puts the TV there and walks off. It’s really weird."From NBC12:“We have a team of officers out here working together, collecting the TVs. We’re upwards of 60 TVs so far," said Lt. Matt Pecka of Henrico Police Division.Pecka says the culprits could face charges of littering on private property or illegal dumping, but some residents recognize the absurdity in the situation. Read the rest

Meet Mia and Emilka.National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale captured this heartwarming video of a cat and rhino who are unlikely friends. View this post on Instagram Video by @amivitale. Back by popular demand! Here is more of Mia and Emilka. Mia, the kitty had her tail bitten off by a different rhino when she was a little thing. But she persisted, kept her heart open, and one day found true love with a rhino named Emilka at Dvur Kralove @safariparkdvurkralove in the Czech Republic. This is the same place where the last northern white rhinos came from and they have been instrumental in saving species from the brink of extinction. ️️️ @thephotosociety @natgeo #WorthMoreAlive #protectrhinos #DontLetThemDisappear #rhinos #saverhinos #stoppoaching #prague #czechrepublic #photojournalism #nikon #nikonambassador #natureisspeaking #catsofinstagram #catstagram #kitties #cat #amivitaleA post shared by Ami Vitale (@amivitale) on Mar 2, 2019 at 12:03am PST “Mia, the kitty, had her tail bitten off by a different rhino when she was a little thing. But she persisted, kept her heart open, and one day found true love with a rhino named Emilka at Dvur Kralove @safariparkdvurkralove in the Czech Republic,” Vitali wrote on Instagram.“This is the same place where the last northern white rhinos came from and they have been instrumental in saving species from the brink of extinction.”Here's more video below. View this post on Instagram Video by @amivitale. I am honored to be speaking as part of TEDx Bergamo (@tedxbergamo) in Italy on March 16. The topic is Wonder, the magic of a singular event. Read the rest

* FAA says some MacBook Pros are unsafe on airplanes• Apple recently recalled certain laptops over battery fire riskThe Federal Aviation Administration today banned people from bringing recalled MacBook Pros onto flights and carriers in Europe. The FAA is also going to start banning the MacBook Pro sold between 2015 and 2017.In today's statement, FAA says it was “aware of the recalled batteries that are used in some Apple MacBook Pro laptops,” and alerted U.S. airlines about the recall.From Mark Gurman and Alan Levin at Bloomberg:The watchdog also reminded airlines to follow 2016 safety instructions for goods with recalled batteries, which means that the affected Apple laptops should not be taken on flights as cargo or in carry-on baggage by passengers.The European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a warning about these MacBook Pro models earlier this month, telling airlines in the region to follow 2017 rules that require devices with recalled lithium-ion batteries to be switched off and not used during flights.The Apple laptops in question are some 15-inch MacBook Pros sold between September 2015 and February 2017. Apple issued the recall in June, saying it had “determined that, in a limited number of older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro units, the battery may overheat and pose a fire safety risk.”This week, four airlines with cargo operations managed by Total Cargo Expertise -- TUI Group Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines, Air Italy, and Air Transat -- implemented a ban, barring the laptops from being brought onto the carriers’ planes as cargo, according to an internal notice obtained by Bloomberg News. Read the rest

We've posted several times about blind people who have learned how to "see" and navigate the world using echolocation like bats, shrews, and whales. In the video above, YouTuber Molly Burke and echolocation educator Brian Bushway, who are both blind, try to teach It's Okay To Be Smart's Dr Joe Hanson, who is sighted, the fundamentals of this extraordinary skill. Read the rest

Amazon is a major federal contractor. AWS powers ICE raids and detention camps.

Dylan Sheridan circuit-bent some smoke alarms and posted the results of his sonorous experiments to Bandcamp. [via Metafilter]Circuit Bent Smoke Alarms - Ringtone Collection by Dylan SheridanUnprocessed sounds of circuit bent smoke alarms. If anybody uses these let me know I can't tell you how happy it would make meBig fan of the solid feet-on-the-floor beat of call_1 but its the intricate structures of call_5 that really speak to me. I am two glasses of sawbuck wine away from making a pounding EDM track that integrates these. Read the rest

I wrote a while back about why typing on old keyboards feels better: it's because they were simple, low-latency devices interacting with your computer's bare metal. Nowadays, many device instructions end up filtered through a zillion layers of microcontrollers, firmware, virtual machinery, applications, hardware abstraction layers and God knows what else before a byte gets to the screen. How annoying is too annoying? is a Glitch site by Monica Dinculescu that lets you simulate keyboard latency, to see exactly how much of it you can take.This is an experiment to see what amount of delay is too annoying for a user interaction like typing. Here are some presets; make sure to type a lot of characters at once for the full effect. Note that whatever you select in the app, it's added to the actual latency of your own keyboard and computer--probably 100ms or so for most of us. After about 50ms of extra wait, I start to get aggravated. Read the rest

This 15-minute explainer video might be the only video you'll need to learn as much about switches as you'll ever care to find out.Image: YouTube/Technology Connections[via Dooby Brain] Read the rest

Computational biologist Mike Inouye posted this video to Twitter, saying, "This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces."This zombie snail. A parasitic worm Leucochloridium has taken over its motor functions and eye stalks, making them into caterpillar mimics so birds will eat them. The worm can then reproduce in the bird's GI tract, eventually transmitting via its faeces 🤯 https://t.co/mP8IrGh21L pic.twitter.com/C2xc83oU54— Mike Inouye (@minouye271) August 12, 2019Image: Twitter/Mike Inouye Read the rest

Model train hobbyist James Risner creates mesmerizing spirals from HO Scale model trains. His creations remind me of kinetic art sculptures. All aboard!https://youtu.be/qUZVv0nr2rc(via The Kid Should See This) Read the rest

Ken "Popehat" White (previously) has expanded on his excellent Twitter thread about Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in jail, and just how (shamefully) normal it is for prisoners to die in custody due to indifference, overwork, malfeasance and sadism on the part of prison authorities.In the Atlantic, White tells the stories of 32 inmates who died (or nearly died) in US custody, under circumstances that are every bit as absurd and negligent as those surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's death.The point isn't that it's inconceivable that Epstein died as the result of a conspiracy, but the conspiracy theories that say that it has to be a setup because it's so implausible that prison authorities would be so totally useless are thoroughly disconnected from reality.The state of US prisons is a national shame, and the fact that America incarcerates more people than any other nation in world history in these gulags is a national horror.Andrew Holland died in a restraint chair in San Luis Obispo County, California. He was strapped to the chair, naked, for two days. If you like, you can watch video of the guards laughing as medics try fruitlessly to perform CPR, though I would not recommend it.The story of Shamieke Pugh and Maurice Lee has laughter, too, but I don’t think it’s funny. Maybe I’m humorless? Pugh and Lee were African American, and they were handcuffed, helpless, to a jail table when they were stabbed by a white supremacist. The guards laughed.Darren Rainey was an inmate in South Florida. Read the rest

This Wera slotted 0.5 mm x 3.0 mm x 80 mm screwdriver is on sale for just including shipping. Read the rest

The Duke Law and Technology Review has released a special edition dedicated to examining the legal and philosophical legacy of John Perry Barlow: co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; junior lyricist for the Grateful Dead; biofuel entrepreneur; philosopher; poet; hacker Zelig; and driven, delightful weirdo.Barlow died an untimely death in early 2018 after a lingering illness (septicemia from an infected toenail cuticle, seriously), and the breadth of the scholars in this journal are a testament to his wide reach. I was privileged to contribute an essay myself. Other contributors include the copyright scholar James Boyle (previously), who also edited this edition; EFF Executive Director Cindy Cohn (previously); Yochai "Wealth of Networks" Benkler (previously); Julie Cohen (previously); Jonathan Zittrain (previously); Peter Jaszi (previously); Pam Samuelson (previously); Charlie Nesson (previously); Jessica Litman (previously) and other smart and insightful writers and scholars. The issue also includes some of Barlow's most influential essays like the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace (previously) and "Selling Wine Without Bottles."I can't wait to dig into this! Here's some of Cindy Cohn's essay, "Inventing The Future: Barlow and Beyond":Barlow was trying to use the force of his will and mighty pen to bring a good future to pass in a world where it was far from certain. He was trying to get out ahead of what he knew would be the powerful forces against freedom online. Read the rest

Ken Landauer is an artist and woodworker who designs nice-slooking piece of furniture with two constraints. First, a piece or set can only use one standard 4 x 8 foot sheet of plywood, and second, it must use at least 94% of the sheet.From Core 77:Landauer's signature puzzle-piece style is made of CNC cut pieces that are finished with a UV-cured acrylic coating and can be customized with laminated or lacquered color options. Each piece is sanded, edged, and joined by hand.The angular designs have acquired a reputation for being more comfortable than they initially appear. As a trained yogi (Landauer's body was used to develop the male cartoon figure that appears in 108 Yoga Poses for Dummies) Landauer considered proper body alignment and support when deciding on the various angles and surfaces of his pieces.Image: Ken Landauer/Core 77 Read the rest

This seems bad. Buzzfeed:Almost 40 minutes before ABC News first reported Epstein’s death on Twitter, someone posted still-unverified details on 4chan, the anonymous message board popular with far-right trolls and white nationalists. “[D]ont ask me how I know, but Epstein died an hour ago from hanging, cardiac arrest. Screencap this,” read the post, which was published at 8:16 a.m. alongside an image of Pepe, the green frog that has become a mascot for right-wing internet trolls. ... the original poster added more information to the discussion thread, including a detailed breakdown of the procedures allegedly used to resuscitate Epstein, which suggest the poster may have been a first responder, medical worker, or otherwise privy to details about efforts to resuscitate the disgraced financier.The Fire Department of New York apparently suspects one of their own and is "reviewing" the posting, but insists it is not "investigating" it. Read the rest

David Howard, McSweeney's: "Let me tell you, it’s hard out here for an orc. We experience tremendous insecurity, not knowing whether we’ll have a job, or be able to raid peaceful villages, or if our friends will eat us. Sauron appeals to us economically challenged goblins because he offers us the chance of a decent wage, respect for our values, and renewed pride in being the corrupted spawn of Morgoth." (Image: Guise, CC BY-SA, modified; Chicago Costume Company) (via Bruce Sterling) Read the rest

Luke Curtis, the IT manager for Quartz, recently bought an iTunes gift card from a "popular discount website" and loaded into into his iTunes account. A few days later he received a message from Apple that read "You cannot login because your account has been locked." He called Apple's customer service and was told that the card he'd used had been stolen but that they understood that Luke was the victim, not the perpetrator, and that his account would be reactivated in 24 hours. After 24 hours had elapsed and Luke was still locked out he called back. This time, the customer service rep he was connected to was a less friendly. He told Luke, “Your account has been permanently disabled. There is nothing else you can do, there is no escalation path.” When Luke asked why, the agent said only, “See the terms and conditions.”It turned out that getting locked out of his Apple account made all of Luke's Apple hardware almost useless. From his article on Quartz:I started to realize just how far-reaching the effects of Apple disabling my account were. One of the things I love about Apple’s ecosystem is that I’ve built my media collection on iTunes, and can access it from any of my Apple devices. My partner and I have owned numerous iPods, iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, iMacs, Apple Watches, Apple TVs, and even a HomePod, over the years. Apple plays a big part in my professional life too: As the IT manager for Quartz, we use Apple hardware and publish on Apple platforms. Read the rest

Choices. https://t.co/o3bJPCDApG pic.twitter.com/uYrI6mype5— Cliff Pickover (@pickover) August 10, 2019 I can only hope that there was a second chance.(via Daily Grail) Read the rest

Julia Burnham tweeted, "I woke up in a cold sweat last night to create this content. I present: the Email Sign-off Alignment." It's excellent!I woke up in a cold sweat last night to create this content. I present: the Email Sign-off Alignment pic.twitter.com/SkNpXxrj5V— Julia Burnham (@juliarburnham) August 9, 2019See also:Connector Alignment ChartShopping Cart Alignment ChartImage: Twitter/Julia Burnham Read the rest

All the Democratic frontrunners outpoll Trump, but Bernie beats him 50-42 in a new Surveyusa poll; Biden has the same margin, while Warren and Harris have leads that are smaller than the margin of error. (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

Sometimes, it's hard to prove that your shitty boss violated federal labor law by threatening to fire you for talking to a union organizer. Sometimes, it's not. See you in court, Dave Portnoy. (via /r/LateStageCapitalism/) Read the rest

Wild About Houdini shares the details of Houdini's suspended straight jacket escape in Los Angeles.For years I've been trying to uncover details of Houdini's first suspended straitjacket escape in Los Angeles. While his 1923 escape is well represented in photos and newspaper clippings, his 1915 escape has proven strangely elusive. This would have been a major event with a massive crowd and snarled traffic, yet there's no mention of it in either the Los Angeles Times or the Herald. How could that be? If fact, the only clue that it ever happened at all is this short undated film clip:This has been especially vexing as L.A. is my home and I've tasked myself with uncovering all the Houdini connections I can. I've actually been entertaining the idea that the above film is misidentified and there never was a 1915 Los Angeles escape. Maybe this is Oakland? We know Houdini did an escape there before coming to L.A.But on a recent visit to the Magic Castle, librarian Joe Fox finally helped me crack the case. He showed me a flyer from the 1987 televised séance The Search For Houdini. Joe wondered if I had ever seen it. I told him had. In fact, I own one myself. But I haven't looked at it in years, so I popped it open anyway. There, much to my astonishment, was a paragraph about Houdini in Los Angeles with key details about the 1915 escape. As if to mock me, it referred to it as one of Houdini's "best documented" escapes. Read the rest

From an unbylined, slapdash item at CBS News:CBS News has learned that the morning of Jeffrey Epstein's death there was shouting and shrieking from his jail cell. Guards attempted to revive him while saying "breathe, Epstein, breathe." The rest of the story is all recap, offering no clarification at all about who was shrieking or even to make clear that it was after Epstein died. The only other new detail in it is that his brother was summoned to identify his body.This is obviously going to be everywhere today. Is the suggestion that it was a guard or other jail staffer upon discovering his body? That CBS News chose such an ambiguous headline, allowing that it might have been Epstein shrieking, is the stuff institutional regrets are made of. Read the rest

Sometimes, I play video games to get out of my head for an hour or two. A bit of gaming allows me to numb myself after a stressful day at work or to relax through a bout of insomnia once I become too damn tired to read but not sleepy enough to drift off. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: the Black Order for the Nintendo Switch offers just the right amount of a dumb plot, decent graphics and button mashing to scratch my escapist itch.For the past few years, everything in Marvel’s cinematic universe and many of their comics have revolved around the Infinity Stones. You’ll find no exception here. If you’ve seen a trailer for Avengers Endgame, you’ve got the broad strokes of this game’s story. Infinity Stones are powerful. Infinity Stones are bad. Bad people want them. It’s a plot that a wee kid could follow, which I suppose is Disney/Marvel’s plan. And why not? It’s a story that’s proven capable of printing its own money.As you progress through the game’s various levels, you’ll take on progressively tougher foes with a team of four heroes of your choosing. Your roster of potential teammates grows as you bop along. There’s no earning new members... it just kind of happens. I’m a few hours into the game. Disappointingly, the amount of customization allowed for your heroes by the last two iterations of the game appear to be largely absent. There’s no costumes to unlock. No accessories that your heroes can mix and match to enhance their power set: just points and drops that allow you to power up in one way or another. Read the rest

Uber -- a bezzle -- projected $8b in losses this year; but it lost more than $5b in a single quarter, and despite an initial stock price rise (dead cat bounce?) the company's shares have tumbled by more than 10% since, hitting an all-time low. Engineers who were scheduled to interview at Uber have had those interviews canceled by the company's HR department, who told them the company now has a tech-worker hiring freeze. (Image: Tarcil, CC BY-SA, modified) (via Naked Capitalism) Read the rest

I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that shit has been well out-of-hand in the United States of America for some time now. Children are being taken from their parents and held in deplorable conditions. Folks are murdered for the color of their skin. Gun violence... yeah. It's bullshit. So, it should come as no surprise that a number of nations including New Zealand, The Bahamas, Germany and Japan have all issued travel advisories to their citizens, warning them that traveling to the U.S.A. could result in very bad things. One could argue this away as politics. Amnesty International, however, hasn't got a nationalistic horse in this race. Today, they came out swinging with a statement as well, chatting up the fact that maybe visiting the 'States ain't such a great idea.From Amnesty International: Let's be honest: there's not a damn thing in there that isn't true.Images via Amnesty International Read the rest

Last summer, we published a comprehensive look at the ways that Facebook could and should open up its data so that users could control their experience on the service, and to make it easier for competing services to thrive.In the time since, Facebook has continued to be rocked by scandals: privacy breaches, livestreamed terrorist attacks, harassment, and more. At the same time, competition regulators, scholars and technologists have stepped up calls for Facebook to create and/or adopt interoperability standards to open up its messenger products (and others) to competitors.To make matters more complex, there is an increasing appetite in both the USA and Europe, to hold Facebook and other online services directly accountable for the actions of its users: both in terms of what those users make available (copyright infringement, political extremism, incitements to violence, etc) and in how they treat each other (harassment, stalking, etc).Fool me twice...Facebook execs have complained that these goals are in conflict: they say that for the company to detect and block undesirable user behaviors as well as interdicting future Cambridge Analytica-style data-hijacking, they need to be able to observe and analyze everything every user does, both to train automated filters and to allow them to block abusers. But by allowing third parties to both inject data into their network and pull data out of it--that is, allowing interoperability--the company's ability to monitor and control its users' bad behavior will be weakened.There is a good deal of truth to this, but buried in that truth is a critical (and highly debatable) assumption: "If you believe that Facebook has the will and ability to stop 2.3 billion people from abusing its systems and each other, then weakening Facebook's control over these 2.3 billion people might limit the company's ability to make that happen."But if there's one thing we've learned from more than a decade of Facebook scandals, it's that there's little reason to believe that Facebook possesses the requisite will and capabilities. Read the rest

In my latest podcast (MP3), I read my essay "Interoperability and Privacy: Squaring the Circle, published today on EFF's Deeplinks; it's another in the series of "adversarial interoperability" explainers, this one focused on how privacy and adversarial interoperability relate to each other. Even if we do manage to impose interoperability on Facebook in ways that allow for meaningful competition, in the absence of robust anti-monopoly rules, the ecosystem that grows up around that new standard is likely to view everything that's not a standard interoperable component as a competitive advantage, something that no competitor should be allowed to make incursions upon, on pain of a lawsuit for violating terms of service or infringing a patent or reverse-engineering a copyright lock or even more nebulous claims like "tortious interference with contract."In other words, the risk of trusting competition to an interoperability mandate is that it will create a new ecosystem where everything that's not forbidden is mandatory, freezing in place the current situation, in which Facebook and the other giants dominate and new entrants are faced with onerous compliance burdens that make it more difficult to start a new service, and limit those new services to interoperating in ways that are carefully designed to prevent any kind of competitive challenge.Standards should be the floor on interoperability, but adversarial interoperability should be the ceiling. Adversarial interoperability takes place when a new company designs a product or service that works with another company's existing products or services, without seeking permission to do so. Read the rest

Your phone doesn't have to be the only smart piece of tech in your pocket. We regularly take pens, lighters, and wallets for granted, but here are 10 portable items that improve on those everyday bits of gear and others just like them.TEC Accessories The Orbiterâ„¢ Pinstripe Magnetic Fidget DeviceTired of that same old fidget spinner? This two-piece sensory device involves a magnetic ball that rotates a grade 5 titanium hub, providing continuous, hypnotic movement that you can control and enjoy. And with a nano-composite microlayer, you can be sure it's more durable than typical spinners. TEC Accessories' The Orbiterâ„¢ Pinstripe Magnetic Fidget Device is now $29.99, a full 55% off the list price.Geekey Multi-ToolOpen and closed wrench, a screwdriver, bit driver, wire bender and even a smokeable pipe are just a few of the uses of this multi-tool. It's TSA-compliant, and it's roughly the size and shape of a regular key, so it goes with you wherever your keychain does. The Geekey Multi-Tool is now $22.99, down 58% from the original cost.EverRatchet Ratcheting Keychain Multi-ToolThe emergency fire flint kit makes this pint-sized multi-tool especially useful for the outdoors, but the wire stripper and 7(!) wrenches make it a lifesaver around the house as well. Get the EverRatchet Ratcheting Keychain Multi-Tool for $24.99, a 10% break off the MSRP.Pry.Me Bottle OpenersIt may be billed as the world's tiniest bottle opener, but this grade 5 titanium tool can hold 164,000 times its own weight. Read the rest

Jacob the parrot enjoys dancing to the theme music for the video game Super Mario Bros. Hope you enjoy the video as much as he clearly enjoys performing for it.“Jacob the blue and gold macaw dancing, he just loved the song that was playing.” —@Valyndris. [Link, via IMGUR] Read the rest

Cronch cronch cronch.No sound, unfortunately. Would have made for some very comforting ASMR.I Luv Ice Wow Read the rest

Automattic (beloved parent company of WordPress) is buying Tumblr from Verizon (loathesome parent company of Oath, a division named because its users are generally angry enough to swear at it), at a price "well below" $20m (which is well below the $1.1b Yahoo paid in 2013). No word as to whether Automattic will get rid of Tumblr's world-beatingly-terrible pornography filter. (via Bruce Sterling's Tumblr) Read the rest

I've written about Tom Gauld's wry and wistful books and comics a lot on Boing Boing over the years. One of his latest books is this cleverly bound collection of heavy stock postcards called The Snooty Bookshop. Almost all the postcards have something to do with books, and anyone who loves books will identify with the jokes and stories here. (The "Have you seen my Kindle anywhere?" is something I've said more than once.) If you are actually planning to tear out the cards and mail them to your friends, I suggest that you buy two copies, or just buy one copy and text photos of the cards. Read the rest

Sarah Krouse reports that Automattic, the company behind WordPress, is buying Tumblr from Verizon. WordPress is the software reportedly powering a third of the world's websites, and was itself originally focused on blogging. Tumblr was the blogging service of choice for millions of young people, but floundered after being sold to AOL Yahoo and subsequently cleansed of smut and other advertiser-unfriendly material when Yahoo was itself sold to Verizon. Verizon Communications Inc. has agreed to sell its blogging website Tumblr to the owner of popular online-publishing tool WordPress, unloading for a nominal amount a site that once fetched a purchase price of more than $1 billion. Automattic Inc. will buy Tumblr for an undisclosed sum and take on about 200 staffers, the companies said. Tumblr is a free service that hosts millions of blogs where users can upload photos, music and art, but it has been dwarfed by Facebook, Reddit and other services.Surprise news, and surely good news for those still using Tumblr. It still has plenty of life in it despite the damp carpets and stagnant air. Looking forward to seeing what happens next.But for one thing, the porn will not be back. Mr. Mullenweg said his company intends to maintain the existing policy that bans adult content. He said he has long been a Tumblr user and sees the site as complementary to WordPress.com. “It’s just fun,” he said of Tumblr. “We’re not going to change any of that.” Bought on a whim, for a song. Read the rest

Michael Gardi posted instructions for making a replica of the GENIAC ("GENIus Almost-automatic Computer") that was sold in kit form in the 1950s and 1960s for $20.GENIAC consisted of a Masonite back panel with six areas of concentric perforations, six similarly perforated Masonite disks, and some additional hardware listed in the supplies section below.Slotted brass bolts were positioned on the main back panel in such a way that brass "jumpers" inserted into the underside of the Masonite disks would create electrical connections when the disks were rotated over them. The bolts were wired together along with a battery and some lights to create "programs," basically single purpose "machines."Technically GENIAC was a collection of configurable N-pole by N-throw rotary switches, which could be set up to be cascaded and thus perform logical functions. As a result GENIAC could use combinational logic only, its outputs depending entirely on inputs manually set. However, projects outlined in the manual, which started with basic logic circuits, ultimately progressed to such things as a NIM machine and TIC-TAC-TOE machine.Michael Gardi previously on Boing Boing:Complete instructions for making a replica of the Minivac 601 educational computer kit3D printed replica of the Digi-Comp II marble computerHow to 3D print the Think a Dot, a nifty "computer" toy from 1965Make this scale model of the Dr. Nim digital gameAbove, a video by Brian Moriarty. "A description and simulation of 'The Uranium Shipment and the Space Pirates,' the first computerized interactive story, published in 1955 as Project 23 of the GENIAC hobby kit." Read the rest

In 2015 my friend, the fabulous artist Mitch O'Connell, created this excellent illustration of Donald Trump as one of the evil aliens from John Carpenter's 1988 science fiction film, They Live. Once Trump became president, Mitch tried to install a billboard with the illustration, but no one in the US would let him. He ended up displaying it in Mexico City, though.Well, Mitch recently found out that a Times Square billboard company will allow him to display his illustration on a billboard and he's started a gofundme campaign to make this dream a reality. Go, Mitch!It seems since 2017 New York billboard companies might have loosened up a bit, and as long as I sign one of those fancy lawyer letters that says everything is my fault, they’ll take our money and slap the art up on vinyl for the world to see!We have three billboard options starting at $7,892, then $14,112, and the huge supersized one at $45,000 (I'll be posting pics of the locations)!If we don’t reach the minimum, all money gets returned. I’m only raising the exact amount that we’re being charged, no extra cash goes in my pocket.The more we take in, the bigger and better the billboard, but the only way this is going to happen is if everyone chips in a bit, shares, promotes, and pesters their friends and family. Especially rich friends and family. Sadly, I mostly know artists, and they’re always broke.This time, instead of the “Make America Great Again” tagline on the illustration, I wanted to get a little more proactive, and switched it up to “VOTE!”. Read the rest

"Oh, shit. What the hell does that rat-soup-eatin' motherfucker want with me?" Read the rest

Insider attacks, cell-site simulators, SIM-swap attacks, thriving markets in super-cheap, fine-grained location data, robocalls, fictitious coverage maps, and more: does the fact that all this terrible shit keeps happening, and only gets worse, mean that mobile companies and the FCC just don't give a fuck if your mobile phone is a crime wave you carry around with you on your pocket?Duh.As Brian Krebs (previously) writes: crooks own your wireless service because no one is willing to erode the profits of the monopolistic, heavily concentrated mobile carriers. Not the carriers themselves, and also not the Trump FCC, whose dingo babysitter Ajit Pai (a former Verizon exec) is why, whenever the carriers get off scot-free, the call is always coming from inside the house.So what the fresh hell is going on here? And is there any hope that lawmakers or regulators will do anything about these persistent problems? Gigi Sohn, a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Technology Law and Policy, said the answer — at least in this administration — is probably a big “no.”“The takeaway here is the complete and total abdication of any oversight of the mobile wireless industry,” Sohn told KrebsOnSecurity. “Our enforcement agencies aren’t doing anything on these topics right now, and we have a complete and total breakdown of oversight of these incredibly powerful and important companies.”Aaron Mackey, a staff attorney at the EFF, said that on the location data-sharing issue, federal law already bars the wireless carriers from sharing this with third parties without the expressed consent of consumers. Read the rest

In 2008, Berlin's historic Tempelhof airport was converted into a public park. Now, Stephan von Dassel, mayor of the city's central Mitte district, is proposing the installation of drive-in sex booths where sex workers can service clients in their vehicles. Resembling rows of car ports, they are called verrichtungsboxen and can be found in Bonn (above), Utrecht, Amsterdam, and other European cities. From CNN:Stephan von Dassel, the mayor who represents the Green party, is attempting to combat prostitution on Kurfürstenstrasse, an upmarket street in Mitte with a history of sex workers."Residents and businesses have been calling for a ban on street prostitution for many years," he wrote in a statement. Yet he notes that the Berlin Senate has refused to implement regulatory restrictions "because it fears a deterioration of the overall situation."He is now proposing a restriction on street prostitution in the district, instead offering sex workers booths in controlled areas in a bid, he says, to improve the lives of "residents and sex workers" alike...Dassel argues that the current situation for the sex workers on Kurfürstenstrasse is "inhumane," and by refusing to act, the state of Berlin is tolerating "forced prostitution, violence against women and drug addiction."image: "Verrichtungsboxen" in Bonn, Germany (Leonce49, CC BY 3.0) Read the rest

Watch the world champion of gymnastics Simone Biles stick the landing on a triple-double at yesterday's U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Kansas City. Incredible slow motion of that below. Biles won her sixth all-around title. This is two days after she made history with a double-double dismount off the balance beam. Video of that is also below. (ESPN)Simone Biles, in extreme slow motion. pic.twitter.com/mjdYp0zwkv— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) August 12, 2019 Read the rest

Super Mario Maker 2 is designed to let you create your own Mario platformer levels, but the tools are flexible enough that a sufficiently ingenious creator can make all kinds of amazing things with them.Enter ねぎちん, whose Super Mario Maker 2 level, 3D Maze House (P59-698-55G), is a first-person adventure game in the mold of Wizardry, an astounding technical feat. The basic setup is this: Mario needs to escape a creepy house by collecting a few coins, thus granting him a special key for a locked door. The top left of the screen is what Mario “sees,” while the bottom gives details on where Mario is located—not just what floor, but precisely where in the house, too—and the right is how Mario makes navigation choices.A First-Person Adventure Is One of the Coolest Mario Maker Levels Yet [Patrick Klepek/Vice](via Four Short Links) Read the rest

lacroix.glitch.me is a Glitch app that generates delicious new flavors of calorie-free sparkling water—or perhaps just honest names for the ones there already are. Read the rest

I have been making some amazing meals on a compact bullet smoker.After my first try with the super cheap bullet smoker, I decided to go for a Santa Maria tri-tip. It worked out beautifully.I loaded up the fire ring of the Dynoglo smoker I was using with lots of wood chunks and charcoal, essentially using the same 'Minion' Method of leaving the center of the ring empty, and filling it with hot coals. The coals slowly burn their way out to the center, while also smoldering the wood. Smoke ensues, food cooks.I read a ton of online forum advice and went for a 90 minute smoke at around 225. I had gone to Trader Joe's and picked up a marinated chunk of meat. It went straight from the bag on to the top grill.At the end of the 90 minutes, I took the center portion of the smoker off and moved one of the cooking grills directly above the fire ring. I seared the tri-tip on the super high heat for a couple of minutes. Less time down there is more, and I would have gone with 60 seconds less per side than I thought I needed.The DynoGlo smoker, however, completely came apart during this smoke. Previously the paint would heat up, run a little, and stick to stuff. This time the paint totally bubbled and started to peel, crack and break. The metal looked a bit fatigued on the inside of the smoker as well. Read the rest

In Saint Louis, thieves broke into Martin Casas's storage locker and snatched his comic book collection. Then they took the comics to a local comic shop to sell them. Thing is, Casas owns the shop. From the Riverfront Times:...A Chesterfield woman called within days of the storage locker burglary and asked if Apotheosis might want to buy a box of her comics. Encouraged by a store employee, she dropped off the box on Friday for review and left her name and phone number. Casas arrived shortly after she left to see what she had brought. As soon as he saw the box, he knew. He had written "Cap" on the side, designating it as a box of Captain America comics. Inside, he searched for one particular comic, the third installment of the Captain America Truth series. He had gotten it years ago and knew his copy had a small red mark on the corner. "Sure enough, there's that book," Casas says. "It's my box." He called the cops first, and then the woman. She apparently had no idea she was trying to sell the comics back to their rightful owner, so Casas played dumb. "This is a great collection," he told her on the phone. "You've got at least a couple hundred dollars in comics there." He arranged a meeting for 10 a.m. the next morning, Friday. But before he hung up, he asked if she might have any more, as he was interested in buying whatever he could for the shop. Read the rest

Amazon is under fire over revelations that it did secret deals with local police departments to buzz-market its Internet of Things "Ring" brand surveillance doorbells, but Ring's shady history predates its acquisition by Amazon in 2017.Earlier that year, Ring created a "Digital Neighborhood Watch" program that offered "swag" and discounts to customers who report "suspicious activity" to local cops. The presentation detailing this promotion hints that this was the first step in a wider project to create a network of private surveillance informants who would build value for Ring. Among the activities that Ring encouraged its kappos to report to the police were "loitering," "strange vans and cars," "people posing as utility workers" and "people walking down the street looking into car windows." Also: "unusual activity."The presentation laying out the program is still available on Ring's website, but the company says the program was limited and short-lived, and discontinued by Amazon after the company's acquisition.Ring outlines a 4-month “milestone” progression that Digital Neighborhood Watches should follow: Month 1: Organize a Digital Neighborhood Watch event and post video from the event on social media. Ring claims that all attendees will receive promo codes for Ring device purchases. Month 2: “Convert 10 new users by downloading Ring app and receive free swag for all users.” The document doesn’t specify what this swag is. Month 3: “Solve a crime with the help of our local police officer and receive 50% off any product.” Month 4: “Blog about Ring app in a positive way on personal Facebook and/or promote Ring devices in Neighborhood Watch Facebook page.” People who did this received unspecified free swag upon providing a screenshot of the posts to Ring. Read the rest

This USB chargeable electric lighter is excellent. I use it to start barbecues and light the burners on our ancient gas range. I've used it multiple times a day since getting it in May and have not had to recharge it yet. It's on Amazon. Read the rest

Salmon cannons are used to quickly move salmon from one place to another. I don't know if they salmon enjoy it, but it looks like something a lot of people would like to try.Fixed the audio for you. pic.twitter.com/YvvTm9WEcb— Tuft e. Cake (@Tuftecake) August 11, 2019 Image: Twitter Read the rest

Atomik Grain Spirit is a (largely) (radiation-free) moonshine vodka distilled from grains grown in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as part of an experiment to determine the transfer of radiation from soil to crops; so far, the University of Portsmouth researchers behind the project have only made one bottle, but they hope to go into production and remit 75% of the proceeds to charities in the Exclusion Zone.There's slightly more than 20Bq/kg of strontium-90 in the grain, but this is removed during the distilling process. The ater comes from a deep, contamination-free local groundwater aquifer. The new enterprise is called "The Chernobyl Spirit Company" and has preliminary approval from Ukrainian authorities. Analytical tests of the water and distillate alcohol were conducted by the Ukrainian Hydrometeorological Institute, the University of Southampton GAU-Radioanalytical, the University of Portsmouth Geological and Environmental Laboratories and an independent wine and spirits testing laboratory.The artisanal vodka is one of the results of a project led by Professor Smith, a leading expert on Chernobyl, which was given funding to find out when and if it is safe to start using some of the abandoned land for growing crops.Radioactive-free vodka produced from crops in Chernobyl [Jim Smith/University of Portsmouth]Atomik Grain Spirit(Thanks, Anonymous!) Read the rest